Tracy says pancake breakfast not part of current campaign

State Sen. Jim Tracy says a pancake breakfast held 10 days before he announced plans to run for the U.S. House of Representatives was unrelated to the campaign.

Tracy, R-Shelbyville, said Monday that a Dec. 22 event that drew several hundred people was designed to help him get to know constituents. Rachel Barrett, a consultantwho helped organize the event and now advises Tracy's congressional campaign, said the event was limited only to voters in his newly reconfigured state Senate district.

The breakfast has been called into question - most recently by a former county GOP leader - because federal law generally prohibits candidates from using money raised for state campaigns in their congressional bids.

State filings show that Jim Tracy for State Senate spent more than $40,000 on the pancake breakfast, held at the Doubletree Hotel in Murfreesboro.

Tracy was widely known to be considering a run for Congress at the time, but a Daily News Journal account of the event said he declined to comment on the possibility that day. Tracy announced Jan. 1 that he would challenge U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-South Pittsburg, to represent the 4th Congressional District.

The breakfast was billed as an opportunity to meet Tracy and make donations to Toys for Tots. Tracy said that it was similar to a tailgate event he did at a Middle Tennessee State University football game in 2011.

"I always try to be accessible to my constituents and this is a perfect way for them to talk to me about the issues, especially with two new counties in my Senate district," Tracy said. "I do a little more listening than talkingat these events."

The event has drawn periodic scrutiny, most recently in an opinion piece published Oct. 1 in a Franklin County newspaper. Writing in the Winchester Herald Chronicle, former Franklin County GOP Chairman Mike Hart questioned Jim Tracy for State Senate's payments to Majority Strategies, a Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., mailing firm.

The event was part of a flurry of spending by Tracy's Senate campaign after the November general election, in which he was unopposed. The state senator spent more than $108,000 between Nov. 14, 2012, and the end of the year.

Barrett Johns Strategies, a Nashville political consulting firm, received $35,000 for "professional services." Rachel Barrett released invoices Monday that showed $15,000 of that was related to the breakfast and $20,000 was a retainer that stretched over five months, beginning in August 2012.

Majority Strategies received $14,378 to print and mail invitations to the breakfast, which Barrett said was attended by 800 to 1,000 people. The firm was also paid $20,388.03 to print and mail Christmas cards for Tracy and $10,000 for a voter survey, which asked for opinions on topics such as wine in grocery stores, drug testing for welfare recipients and the state's income tax oninvestments.

Like invitations to the breakfast, Barrett said, the Christmas cards and survey went only to voters living in his Senate district, which covers Bedford, Lincoln, Marshall, Moore and part of Rutherford counties.

The 4th Congressional District encompasses those counties plus several others.

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Tracy says pancake breakfast not part of current campaign

State Sen. Jim Tracy says a pancake breakfast held 10 days before he announced plans to run for the U.S. House of Representatives was unrelated to the campaign.